Slashdot Mirror
FCC Officially Approves Change In the Definition of Broadband
halfEvilTech writes As part of its 2015 Broadband Progress Report, the Federal Communications Commission has voted to change the definition of broadband by raising the minimum download speeds needed from 4Mbps to 25Mbps, and the minimum upload speed from 1Mbps to 3Mbps, which effectively triples the number of U.S. households without broadband access. Currently, 6.3 percent of U.S. households don't have access to broadband under the previous 4Mpbs/1Mbps threshold, while another 13.1 percent don't have access to broadband under the new 25Mbps downstream threshold.
AT&T is soooooo screwed.
ISPs can no longer use false advertisement to try and trick ill-informed consumers (ie. grandma) into paying for garbage.
Hopefully, the result would be that these companies would strive to do better to please their customers. Realistically, the result will be that these companies still know they own a government-sanctioned monopoly over their area(s) and make you pay for shitty service or get no service at all.
Broadband is a description of the technology, not of bandwidth.
Well, to be pedantic, "Broadband" and "Bandwidth" are descriptors for how much spectrum a given signal occupies, and has very little to do with throughput. 802.11b occupies 6MHz of bandwidth to carry 11Mbps, while a QAM256 carrier on cable sends 36Mbps using 6MHz channels. Both of these are broadband, and both have the same bandwidth, but they have significantly different throughputs.
The correct term would really be data rate, or throughput, or something along those lines.
...si hoc legere nimium eruditionis habes...
You can't legislate technology.
Ever read the National Electric Code ?
Nope - instead it'll milk the (soon to be announced) 'broadband improvement initiative' tax incentive cow for all that's worth.
Silly rabbit, corporate tax loopholes can be found wherever your lobbyists can dig them. ;)
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
Ask these questions:
How much competition is allowed for providing Internet access in any given US locale?
Why can we not have municipalities plant/string and own the local fiber/cable/POTS lines, then rent them out to competing ISPs for residential access purposes (see also Utah's UTOPIA initiative)?
Find the answers to those questions, and you'll find the root cause of the non-logistics problems that broadband faces in the US.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
If you want them to be forced to provide you with high-speed Internet, then you need to support government regulation. This is the result of less regulation; they attempt to pick-and-choose to whom they provide service to maximize profit.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
Instead of mindless cynicism, don't resign to it, and don't joke about it. Campaign to stop it.
SURELY NOT!!!!!
One of the things we're doing wrong, as has been discussed to death on Slashdot, is municipalities striking exclusive deals with a single cable and internet provider, preventing any competition from entering the market. Franchise fees are another example of what we're doing wrong; they're often prohibitively expensive and are effectively the same as an exclusive agreement. Other places limit access to utility poles to their one chosen, favored provider.
Competition works. Lower prices, better products, happier consumers.
They have very good reason to fear big government, history has shown over and over and over again that big government is very bad.
What are you going to accomplish? Both parties in this country are bought and paid for by corporate interests so there's no way to change the status quo until that duopoly is broken up. And good luck getting Joe Sixpack to think beyond the bumper sticker slogans provided to him by the talking heads in the media (who are in the same pockets as the politicians).
Well, I can toss in $100. That and your $100 ought to totally destroy the $890,000,000 the Koch brothers have announced they are tossing in to the ring this election cycle. Though the money that large PACs like Verizon belongs to will match the Koch brothers, then our $200 will be hard pressed to compete.
And the propaganda network is very effective. A family member posted a false quote from Elizabeth Warren he got from FoxNews facebook page.
I pointed out that this quote is false, she never said it. Ever. It is a quote from Joseph Stalin.
All the Fox fans jumped on board swearing it is real, that Snopes is lying, and they heard her say it themselves.
The quote remains false, yet this pack will go to the polls thinking one candidate is Stalin because Fox told them so.
Why do the Libertarian crowd always claim that letting the already established huge companies have free reign will result in a more free market? It is mind boggling how utterly and willfully ignorant these folks are.
There are two parties. Plus a few fringe groups that have no power and no way to leverage themselves into political power. You're kidding yourself if you think you can break through the corporate/media/political duopoly/oligarchy that is in power. All they have to do is keep the unwashed masses foaming at the mouth over social issues and they won't notice that they're being completely screwed over by the system. Hell, most people couldn't name their local representatives. Forget them doing enough research to see how their representatives actually vote on their behalf. The only thing the average person cares about is what their representatives tell them during the very well financed campaign. Just take a side (for or against) on gun control, abortion, and gay marriage and your constituency will either line up for you or against you (depending on the district). The average voter doesn't have any time to pay attention to 3rd parties (who are usually extremeists or way out past the outfield bleachers anyway). They care more about making sure the "wrong" candidate doesn't get elected by voting for the "lesser of two evils", not realizing that they're voting for someone who doesn't give two shits about them.
Because thats how Republicans/Democrats crush third party political parties. They turn the message into one-line soundbites to lose the nuance and make them sound like absolute idiots.
The Libertarian crowd claim that free reign will result in a more free market because they also bring up the fact that in most areas large companies have a monopoly BY LAW. You LITERALLY cannot compete in some areas because its ILLEGAL TO DO SO. THAT is what the Libertarian crowd tries to bring up. Big companies, small companies, wtf does it matter when the GOVERNMENT won't let them compete in the first place?
she just sounds like a crazy hippy whenever i hear her talk.
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
I fully believe that this did (or at least could) happen in modern America.
But sadly, the right doesn't have a monopoly on this kind of loony behavior. They tend to be more vocal and rabid right now but the left has it's share of BS flowing from their talking heads. Though to be fair, right now the only thing the left has to do to rally the troops is to point out how crazy the right is right now. There's plenty of material to work with.
What I wouldn't give for a quality centrist party that's willing to compromise and work out policy that meets somewhere in the middle rather than having notthing but weird fringe parties who are way off to the edge in one extreme or another.
This gets everybody to "like" the FCC so people will go along with the FCC's attempts to seize control over the internet.
No FCC; Dispite your efforts we STILL do not accept you or recognize you in any way of having ANY authority over the Internet. YOU don't get to define things. Broadband definition is the same as it has always been. It's defined by the industry and the creators of the product(s).
Too bad, so sad.
My reading of the orignal author's point is that indvidiually most of us can buy very little influence with our contributions (Maybe $100 or so each), while extremely wealthy folks like the Koch Brothers can buy extraordinary influence with theirs. You're reply enitrely ignores that point and instead focuses on making this partisan (both sides do it! Liberals are even worse! etc). Ultimatly none of that matters in the long run. The important point is that a very small number of people in the world hold tremendous influence over the direction of the planet, and that power is becoming more and more concentrated (the top 0.01%'s share of the world's wealth has quadrupled in the last quarter century). Regardless if you think those folks are on your side of a particular issue, the truth is that ultimately they are all on their own side.
This isn't a Conservative vs. Liberal issue, this is a society vs top 0.01% issue.
There is only so much space on the utility polls and under the streets. The number of companies who are allowed to run network cable has to be limited. It's the same with electric, gas, and phone line. I don't see why people don't understand this. It's government enforced monopoly because it's the only practical way to do it.
With common carrier regulation the companies that have the right to use PUBLIC lands for profit must lease their lines to other companies at a fair market value.
The real solution to all of this is the government should build the infrastructure using tax dollars and then lease it to private companies. If I was Bush/Obama in 2008 during the economic crisis I would have used the bail out money to build a nationwide Internet service. Would have hired a lot of people for quite a few years and we'd be better off as a nation for it.
The problem with "The dems raise as much money as republicans" is that, either way, the election becomes about the issues that moneyed donors care about - and almost nothing else. I believe Obama raised more money through smaller donations than Romney did, but even if not - he didn't appoint the Citizen's United faction to the SCOTUS.
Money in politics is a problem - whether it favors one side or not. And it sure seems like the right wing of the SCOTUS thinks it favors their side - because political money is bribery as much as it's speech. And one-person-one-vote democracy doesn't work with one billionaire $100 million worth of speech vs 1 normal voter, 10 bucks.
Posted from my Android phone. Oh, I can change this? There, that's better...
If only I had mod points...
The closest any third party has come to a presidential election was Ross Perot, in 1993. He had a very well-oiled hype machine and a shitload of money, which is why he got as far as he did. Even after he began stumbling and his campaign imploded (hard), he still got 13% of the vote... pretty impressive by most standards of the modern era.
On lower levels, Bernie Sanders (nominally a member of the Socialist party, but caucuses with the Democrats 99% of the time) is the only national candidate period to have made a national office since what, the 1950's?
It's going to take a radical change in attitudes, a really rotten national situation overall, and an even more radical amount of disgust with the current system before folks wander off to vote for a third party. Even when some ideological icon does run on his own (e.g. Ralph Nader), you will see the immediate (and dishearteningly effective) rallying cry of the threatened major party (in Nader's case, the Democrat party immediately started screaming "OMG you'll split the vote and then they will win!")
It'll take a lot to get a third party off the ground. Not impossible, but it'll take a lot to happen nonetheless.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?